


Clockwork

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-27
Updated: 2005-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly reflects on her husband, her children, and the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Voices and Vaginas of the HP Women Challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/users/violet_quill/119726.html) on LiveJournal.

The teakettle had once belonged to Molly's grandmother. It whistled like a dying thing, and was held together with various spells and the sheer force of Molly's will. She poured the tea into a chipped, dragon-shaped mug Charlie had given her his first Christmas in Romania. Its curved tail served as a handle, and it hissed when the tea inside was cool enough to drink.

She wrapped her hands around the mug's scaled surface for warmth, and headed for the couch. Her eyes drifted to the grandfather clock as she passed it, even though she already knew what it would tell her. Her internal clock told her it was past midnight, and Arthur was still at work.

The clock was an heirloom as well. It had been in Arthur's family for several generations, and had stood in the living room of his childhood home while he had been growing up. Arthur's mother had given it to Molly after she had been married to Arthur a little over a year, with a hand for each of them. Molly had protested; it was too fine a gift, but Arthur's mother had only smiled at Molly's swollen belly and said Molly would need it more than she did.

When Bill was born, she had given Molly a new hand. Molly had received one for all of her children, each resting on tissue inside a small, foil box. Arthur had carved the children's names on them in his workshop, with the Muggle tools he thought Molly didn't know he had.

Molly had once suggested having a hand made for Harry, when he and Ron had been in their second year. Arthur had nodded and smiled, but nothing more had come of it. She loved Harry like one of her own, and she knew Arthur did as well, but Arthur had probably not wanted to presume. She was hesitant to bring it up again; so soon after Sirius' death Harry might think it was done out of pity, or find the gesture forced.

The clock still had a hand for Percy. She could not bring herself to remove it, even after everything he had said, and she doubted she ever would. She knew Percy did not speak to Arthur at work if he could avoid it, but Molly wanted to have hope. Now was not the time to be at odds with family, not when mortal peril was no longer just a distant nightmare.

Percy's hand still pointed to _Work_ , she knew this without looking. She also knew it would remain there long after Arthur had come home.

When he did, he would find Molly on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with an empty mug in her lap. He would smile as he woke her, but he would chastise her. He would shake his head and say she shouldn't have waited up. He would tell her everything was fine, even though that was a lie, and he knew she knew that as well as he did.

He would tell her it was there was nothing to worry about. He would remind her that they had lived through war before, and that last time, they had all survived.

It was different now, much different that it had been before. Her children had been younger; Bill had just turned seven and Ginny had not yet been born. They had not understood why their father continually worked late or why she refused to let them play outside, but they had not been old enough that Molly had needed to explain.

In some ways, she had felt safer then, because they had all be living at home. In the back of her mind, she had known it would have been so easy for her to lose them all at once that way, but from day to day she had felt better. Having them all underfoot, needing her for the simplest things had allowed her not to dwell on that, and it had lent a sense of normalcy to the situation. It had been comforting, even if false, and in some ways she wished she had that comfort now.

Arthur often reminded her that Bill and Charlie were far away, in a place where Death Eaters were just a rumor and You-Know-Who was only a memory. He did not mention that Bill and Charlie were also in the Order, and that last time, members of the Order had been among the first to die.

He told her that Fred and George were safe enough. He said that Diagon Alley was a large, open place, and that it was too heavily populated for an open attack. What he did not say was that 93 Diagon Alley was near the entrance to Knockturn Alley, or that one Death Eater could be in and out of their small flat above Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes without anyone becoming the wiser.

She knew little of Percy's situation, other than the one time Arthur had said he'd had taken a flat in London. She suspected Percy had chosen one in a Muggle district to save money, but that did not mean anything. The Potter's had been living as Muggles in Godric's Hollow, and it had not done them a bit of good in the end.

Ron and Ginny were still at Hogwarts, and this should have calmed her, but it did not. Sirius Black had not truly been a menace, but he'd proved that Hogwarts was not as impregnable as everyone would like to believe. The fact that Crouch had posed as a professor for an entire term had as well. Despite what Arthur said, Molly knew no place was really safe anymore.

And it was different now, because before, it had not been so close to home. She and Arthur had been in the Order, but Arthur's Ministry job had afforded him little time for missions, and with six small children and one on the way, she had not been asked at all. The war had been something other people had fought, something she heard about at meetings and read about in the _Prophet_.

Last time, she had not sat in a room at St Mungos while Arthur laid pale and still on a hospital bed. Last time, her daughter had not been unconscious at You-Know-Who's feet while her son's best friend kept him from draining her life away. Last time, her son's best friend had not watched another classmate die, nor had he and her son fought Death Eaters in the Ministry building in the middle of the night.

The last letter Bill sent from Egypt still sat on the coffee table. Two nights ago, Ginny had thrown it out while tidying up, but after everyone had gone to sleep, Molly had fished it out of the bin. It was full of nice things about Fleur Delacour, and Molly was afraid it could be the last letter from Bill she ever received.

Charlie had Flooed recently, full of news from the reserve. They had bred a certain kind of dragon back from near extinction, and he had smiled from ear to ear as he told her about it. She had reached into the fireplace after his head disappeared, her fingers curling around empty green flames. She hadn't caught the name of those dragons, and she wished more than anything that she had.

She had not heard from Percy in months. The clock told her when he was at work and when he was home, but that was not enough, even if it was all she had. She wanted to know the little things; what he had for breakfast, if he was getting enough sleep, if he was still seeing Penelope. Arthur had once told her Muggles had a saying, that no news was good news, but Molly knew that was just a polite lie.

Fred and George visited often, and they always brought presents for her or things for the house. She wanted their laughter and smiles more, because there had been little to laugh about recently. She wanted them to spend the night and she wanted to make them breakfast in the morning. She always asked, but they always refused; they were proud of their newfound independence. Molly could not fault them for this, because deep down, she was proud of them, too.

She knew it would only get harder; in another month, Ron and Ginny would go back to Hogwarts, taking their smiles and chatter with them. She listened to them at tea, at mealtimes, as Ginny talked about Dean Thomas and Ron talked about everything but Hermione. She listened, her mouth parted around words she dared not say because she didn't want to frighten them, and she hoped. She hoped Hogwarts was as safe as Arthur liked to pretend, and she hoped they would have a chance to graduate, to finish growing up, to live.

Molly had always hoped her children would never have to see war, and she had never thought they would have to fight one.

Harry would be here at the end of the week, something she had mixed feelings about. She was glad Ron had such a good friend, and it warmed her heart to see the strong, loyal person her son had become. But their relationship put Ron at risk; he was in danger simply because he was Harry's friend.

They all were, when it came down to it. She knew letting Harry through the Floo on Friday was the same as bringing the war to her doorstep, but she would not have him anywhere but there. Harry had so little, and he had so much taken from him at every turn. She would not begrudge him four weeks of something close to a normal life.

If she asked, Dumbledore would tell her that was what they were fighting for; a normal life. If Dumbledore asked her, she'd say she thought it was incredibly unfair that Harry was expected to fight for something he'd never had himself.

She wondered, when it was all over, if Harry would be able to have a normal life. She wondered if any of them would.

Molly glanced at the clock; she'd found she often knew when one of the hands was about to move. Arthur's swayed slightly and she watched it, her breath caught in her throat. She did not relax until it was headed steadily towards _Home_.

She set her mug on the coffee table, next to a picture of Ron she had been meaning to frame. It was taken at Hogwarts, and he had his arm slung over Harry's shoulder. Ron looked tall and proud in his Quidditch kit, and they both looked young, so young. It was hard to believe that shortly after it was taken, they had been in the same room with You-Know-Who.

The blanket Molly wrapped around her shoulders was pink and white. She had knitted it when Ginny was five, and Ginny had kept it on her bed until she left for Hogwarts. Ginny had not wanted to take it with her; she had said she was too old for pink.

Molly curled up along the arm of the couch, and when she heard Arthur come through the Floo, she closed her eyes.

Arthur felt guilty when he had to stay late at work. Molly knew it was easier on him if he thought she had been asleep the whole time.


End file.
